407. JFK: The Kennedy Curse Begins (Part 1)

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2:48And no, it's not a long pause. He's not here today, but I have the very great pleasure in covering a man that you have all heard of, John F. Kennedy, JFK in short. JFK is one of the most famous names in history who met one of the most notorious ends. Now, the youngest ever president of the United States led his nation through momentous geopolitical events at the height of the Cold War. But what exactly made him who he was? From the influence of his Irish Catholic grandfather in Boston, to surviving the sinking of his ship in shark-infested waters during the Second World War, to those last moments sitting in that convertible before three gunshots sounded across Dealey Plaza in 1963. Today I'm speaking to the

3:33preeminent historian of all things JFK, the Lawrence Belfer Professor of History and International Affairs at Harvard. He is also the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Embers of War, a man who's been advising the new hit Netflix series, Kennedy. Of course, I'm talking about Frederick Logevar. So the last time I met Frederick, he was fresh off a Netflix set where you'd been sort of hanging about with people like Michael Fassbender. Now, right. OK, spill the tea. This is for an adaptation, screen adaptation of your work. Yeah, no, it's a very exciting thing. It'll air next spring. And as you point out, I had the privilege of being on the set. And before that, let me just say that the whole team, the writers led by Sam Shaw, the showrunner, Netflix and their involvement,

4:21the crew in England, and of course, the cast, including Michael Fassbender, who's got the lead role, which is Joseph Kennedy, the father of JFK. Just a privilege for me to interact with all of them and to have a chance to chat, you know, Formula One with Michael, since we're both fans of that, but more importantly, to see them all doing their thing as they can do it. And I think it's a terrific adaptation. And it'll air, as I say, I think it's going to be screened or dropped, whatever the phrase is, in April. That's the plan. Dropped is fine. You sound very Gen Alpha. Well done. You did that very well. You know, if this were a pub, I would be pumping you for information about stars for the next 45 minutes but we're a serious podcast so suffice

5:09to say let's leave the netflix adaptation just i think people would really like to know who's playing jfk who's playing jackie i mean can you reveal i can reveal the former the young jack the young jfk is being played by josh meln, who is relatively new, but I think is marvelous. I predict great things in store for young Josh. And Jackie does not enter the story until season two, if there is a season two. Oh, there will be. So she has not been cast. We don't know yet who will be Jackie. Okay, well, that's a game for our listeners to play. If you want to recommend somebody, because Frederick has some pull on this on this project um you know just send it in empirepoduk.com um so i i want to start with the book because your book does something really unexpected i mean you

5:52started with this colossal figure of joe kennedy and we are going to get to him because he's just immense and in some respect quite monstrous but but can we start with where you start, which is a man I think very few people would have heard of, Honey Fitz, the Boston Irish ward boss. Now, how does he fit into the JFK story? He's a very interesting figure, as you say, and the name sort of gives that away a little bit, but he's the maternal grandfather of John F. Kennedy. So Jack's mother is Rose Kennedy. Her father is the legendary Honey Fitz, a giant on the Boston political scene, in the mayor's office, in various important positions, and also in Congress. But he's really key as an Irish Catholic politician, political chieftain, if you will, in Boston, and I think has a very

6:47important influence on his grandson, which is something I develop both in the first volume, but I also refer to in the second volume, which is now in production, the degree to which he really takes after his grandfather in many ways, even though they're very different kinds of politicians. Honey Fitz is the sort of traditional back-slapping, you know, kissing babies kind of politician. Jack Kennedy, of course, is not. He's much more restrained and doesn't do that kind of thing. But in terms of an interest in politics, a commitment to public service, that comes at least in part from his grandfather, no question. Well, I mean, you say of Honey Fitz in your book that he was an expert practitioner

7:32of the Irish switch. And for those people who don't know what that is, I mean, it's just your basic social rudeness, isn't it? It's sort of shaking hands. If I were shaking hands with you, Frederick, I'd be looking over your shoulder at somebody else and smiling at a third person all simultaneously. You've just defined the Irish switch perfectly. That's exactly what it was. And he was indeed an expert practitioner of this and could speak at a massive clip and would attend dinners, parties, seemingly several of them per night. And even if this is slightly exaggerated, would get around town on a nightly basis like maybe nobody else of totally fascinating figure. Yeah. I mean, again, a person that doesn't come up in the mythology very often for those of us who look at JFK on a very superficial level.

8:28But this was a man who very much like his grandson could party. I mean, you have this wonderful detail in the book that he has all these different collars in his back pocket. So when he's sort of, you know, out and about, he just flips off a collar and puts on a fresh one just so he doesn't look sweaty and dirty. Here, too, maybe Jack gets something from his grandfather because Jack Kennedy was famous for wanting to change shirts frequently. And so he would sometimes have three or four shirts on in a given day. Didn't have to do collars like they did in Hannah Fitz's day. But maybe there's a certain connection there as well. Yeah, because the connection that the Kennedys talked about a lot was Ireland.

9:10You know, they were very, very proud of their Irish roots, and they have a claim to it. I mean, Patrick Kennedy, who's the patriarchal grandfather, is a Wexford boy. I mean, tell us about his story and how that feeds into the mythology. Well, it's, of course, closely connected to the potato famine, middle of the 19th century, that caused, as you know, a massive number of deaths in Ireland and just difficulties for family after family. And many young people in particular took the opportunity to head to America, not knowing what they would find, in many cases, not having any real connections with anybody in the United States. I think that's Patrick Kennedy. He was also not the oldest son. So therefore,

9:59he couldn't expect even if he stayed in Ireland to inherit, you know, the land, the prospects look better for him. And so he took a chance and headed to the States, as it was often called, made his way there in Boston, arrived in Boston. And the Kennedy story, I guess you could say, began with Patrick arriving. And I try to picture the scene, but what was it like to arrive on one of these coffin ships, as they were called, because a lot of people died en route. What was it like to arrive in Boston, this strange new land, not know anybody, have to find a place to live, have to then find a place to work, maybe meet somebody and start a family. What an extraordinary moment that must have been for Patrick. Well, I mean, they were made of different stuff,

10:52weren't they, those early immigrants? And anyone who's seen The Godfather will know that De Niro scene of a little boy washing up on a foreign shore. I mean, that is the Patrick Kennedy story, which is a strange thing because it feels like it's a story that Joe Kennedy sort of co-opted for himself. Now, where people may not have heard of Honey Fitz, everybody's heard of Joe Kennedy and they remember him often not very kindly. So do as a thumbnail sketch of who the real Joe Kennedy was. Well, it's as you say, I think he co-opts. I think you put it very well in the sense he co-opts that origin story in some ways for himself. He liked to tell the story of how he pulled himself up from really nothing, which is actually not true. He grew up pretty

11:36comfortable in Boston, did Joe Kennedy. And he felt he was admitted into Harvard and he had a very driven mother who encouraged him. He was not a particularly good student, but it was easier to get into Harvard in those days than it would be later. He got in and did okay, but felt snubbed by the upper class Brahmins as they were known. The Boston Brahmins always felt snubbed by his peers at Harvard. And he vowed, Anita, he vowed that he would do better than them. He would show them what he could do. He would make more money than they would. He would acquire more power than they would. And I think by and large, we have to say that he succeeded. And so it's really in part a story of Joe Kennedy making this determined effort to really show his peers what he could do

12:34and to show his professors what he could do, the people he had interacted with, with a mother who was encouraging him, I think it's fair to say, every step of the way. So the Brahmins, if we just talk about that for a moment, because I'm fascinated. These are the kind of people who were old money, were they? I mean, sort of, you know, the ones who washed up, first of all, the pilgrim fathers, if you like. And, you know, Martha's Vineyard and all of that kind of stuff. But they were snobs, weren't they? And the Kennedys didn't fit. And that was kind of a thing that you will see again with JFK, with Jack, is that you pride yourself on not fitting in, that you're the special one. Yeah. And what's funny about it, and I don't think the Kennedys are unique in this regard, but

13:20they wanted to fit in. I don't think they would quite admit that, but I think it was a real struggle for Joe in particular that he wasn't fully accepted. Because as you say, we're talking about old money aristocrats who had gone to all the right prep schools, whose father had all the right occupations. And I think Joe Kennedy desperately wanted to be part of that crowd. He tried to get into a final club, which is at Harvard, a kind of elite, a group of elite societies that still exist. And he failed in that effort. And by the way, to jump ahead, Jack was able to, to, to get into a final club. So we can come back to that, but it, it shows, I think the degree to which he. Both, uh, wanted to be separate from the Brahmins, and yet, she seems quite a cold and remote figure.

14:28Tell us about Rose Kennedy. I think it's fair to say that she was. To put it, I guess, most kindly, she was emotionally reserved. And in a way, who can blame her? Because one of the things we haven't discussed, but is worth stressing, is that Joe cheated on her continually. Oh, voraciously. Voraciously is a good word. And so that must have had an effect on her. But I do think it's probably also part of her personality. And then you've got to add in nine children. I speculate that, you know, she wanted to go to college. She had ambitions of her own, but Honeyfist basically quashed those kind of intellectual and maybe career ambitions that she had. So it's difficult for her. I also believe, as I suggest,

15:20that she is hugely important in Jack's development. He's actually closer to his mother in personality than he is to his father. She has a love of history that I think she passes on to Jack. She has a love of reading that she passes on to him. She believes strongly in the notion of giving back, that is to say public service. That I think he inherits from both parents, but maybe a little bit more from her. So I want to give her credit that she often doesn't get in the books because Joe is such a colorful, dominant figure that we sometimes forget about Rose, but she is the mother of nine, including the future president of the United States. You use the word colorful, but I would say Joe is just downright slutty. Well, just

16:12heartbreaking. I mean, he must have been an absolute nightmare to be married to. He gets involved after being terribly successful in banking. And what comes across from your first volume is that this is a man who's less interested in money and more interested in power and he realizes where the power lies but then he gets involved in hollywood so he's surrounded by glamour he sees you know the 1920s when it's still silent movies that this is where you know the world is going to look it's going to be a center of a universe and he gets involved with the most beautiful woman of the day. I mean, everybody, not a secret. This is a real Marilyn Monroe kind of echo, but it's Gloria Swanson for JFK's father, isn't it?

16:55Yeah, it is. And I think you're absolutely right. I want to just say a nightmare to be married to in many ways, as you say. He could show affection for Rose on a pretty regular basis. There was another side to him. Didn't appear very often. He was actually also a very devoted father, which is something we can come back to. But there is that dimension of him. But the Hollywood chapter is fascinating. And there have been books written about Joe Kennedy in Hollywood because he really does become, in a short period of time, a kind of mogul. He's good at this. And it comes, by the way, it causes him to understand the importance of image, public relations. He comes to see that this is intimately connected with

17:36the future of politics. And so when Jack becomes a congressional candidate, I think his father's Hollywood years are key in getting young Jack Kennedy to understand the importance of looking good on the camera, speaking to the camera. Television, I think they understand from an early point, certainly by the early 1950s, it's gonna be huge. But the affair with Swanson, which features in the Netflix series, I guess I can disclose for obvious reasons, is amazing because here you have, as you put it, this is the biggest star in Hollywood. And she becomes the not so secret mistress, we could note, of one Joseph Kennedy. The reasons people may be shouting, get the JFK, but you need to understand the ingredients. It will all make sense because all of this is going to feel like deja vu all over again when we get to JFK. So just understand. And maybe if I can ask you to explain how Joe Kennedy, like JFK, a devout Catholic, can resolve adultery, which is a sin, you know, which is something he would have had to

18:46go to the confessional to discuss all the time. Well, maybe you put your finger on it right there. He says, and he's probably not the only Catholic to say this, I'll go to confession. I mean, he understands, in other words, that this is a sin.'s not he's he's breaking God's word he's breaking what the Bible uh says is is is appropriate uh behavior but it's like he can't help himself it's about it seems to me for him and maybe for his son it's about the conquest it's about uh showing that nothing can stop him. And it begins, as we noted earlier, it begins at a very early point. It begins before, long before he goes to Hollywood, years before he goes to Hollywood. So this is not, I don't think, closely connected with his mogul years, if I can put it that way.

19:43But it begins early and it continues. And of course, he models this behavior for his sons, both Joe Jr., who we haven't mentioned, the golden child in the firmament, and then the second son, which is Jack. I promised you we're going to get to the children, but just in the first half of this, and after the break, we will dwell on these nine children and the two boys in particular but just before we go to the break i want to use joe as the portal to politics because without joe kennedy and his interest in politics and power there would have been no jfk there just wouldn't have been and so in 1934 he starts sort of to start treading the ground or preparing the ground to become a political figure.

20:26And at some point, Frederick, he's rising and he's taken sort of fairly seriously because he's got money and power. But at one point then he says, oh, look, I think there's an ambassadorship going in London. And this is in the 1930s. And he goes to FDR. I'd like that job. And apparently, according to your book, when Roosevelt first hears this, he falls out of his wheelchair laughing because this is the most undiplomatic man who exists in the firmament. Yeah. No, it's absolutely the case. You know, there's an important point here that we should underscore, Anita, which is I think he comes to understand that if the 20s were about making money and that that's what many Americans, including in elite positions,

21:12deemed to be the most important thing. I think Joe Kennedy understood that the 30s were about politics. We have a depression. We have a growing importance of decisions made in Washington. And so he shifts. And again, it's about seeking power for him. And he wants, as you rightly point out, a position of consequence in politics. And through a process of elimination, he really wanted to be Secretary of the Treasury, but Roosevelt was not going to appoint him to that position. Why? Because he was widely regarded as, you know, I don't know, a sort of a poacher. So to put him in a gamekeeper's role, that would have been a disaster. Yeah, I think that's part of it. I think part of it is that Roosevelt had other people in mind,

21:58people he preferred over Joe Kennedy. He also didn't fully trust Joe Kennedy, which is an interesting point. And in fact, one of the reasons he got to the London ambassadorship was because it would take him out of the United States. It would move him away. FDR and his aides saw Joe Kennedy as a threat, somebody with his own presidential ambitions. Here's a way to get him off the stage, if you will. But we should also note, and this is no longer the case, but in that era, the ambassadorship in London was one of the great appointments in American government. Many, many former ambassadors to the court of St. James's went on to become president and vice president. So you could see why Joe, being ambitious for him, at this point he's ambitious for himself.

22:50He wants to be president. You could see why he would say, ah, yes, I'll go to London. I'll do well there. And it'll be the platform from which I can then run for president. Well, I mean, I just want you all as we go into this break to remember the timing of that position, because it is the 1930s. He will be in the heart of Europe, where Europe is having to pick sides with the rise of Adolf Hitler. And well, let's just say he may not pick the wisest side. Join us after the break. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound Terzepatide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity

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25:15keeping your records current and helping you see what to do next, so you can focus on building demand, winning deals, and keeping customers coming back. You know, the things most worth doing. Learn more at HubSpot.com. Latte for Kenan? That's me. Hey, you're... Yeah. Buying a car online on AutoTrader? Really? But unlike other sites, you can start online, test drive with a local dealer, then finish online or at the dealership. Really? Wait, are you... Yep, it's Kenan. Able to finish in person without starting the process over? Really. Your info stays with you every step of the way. Cool. Enjoy. It's Keenan Thompson. Buy your car online on AutoTrader. Really? Welcome back. So, Frederick, you sort

25:59of teased us with nine children. Poor Rose. I mean, actually, I feel so sorry for Rose. No wonder she was cold and stanch and knackered. Nine children. And Jack is the second son. So he's not the heir. Joe Jr. is, as you say, the golden child, the man, you know, with the backlit entry into the world. Tell us about the relationship between the siblings, because it was crunchy, wasn't it? It was deeply competitive. Jack drew some comfort from the fact that he could operate a little bit in the shadow of his older brother. His older brother, we should note, Hollywood star, handsome. He excelled at every level of education. Had to work harder than Jack. Jack was a kind of a slacker, as we say these days,

26:46and was able to get solid grades without putting really any effort into it. Joe had to work much harder. But it's a strong sibling rivalry. Joe can beat up Jack anytime he wants. He's physically stronger. He's bigger. Jack, as we haven't discussed yet, but had lots of health issues. Let's talk about it, because it's more than quarterback versus geek. I mean, you know, Jack Kennedy was a sick little boy, wasn't he, really? Yeah, he really was from a very early point. Almost died from scarlet fever when he was just beyond toddlerhood, if we can say that, but then had ailments throughout. It was difficult for him. It was fairly common in those days when you were at a private school for your parents not to visit, so we shouldn't make too much of this. But Rose

27:29Kennedy really never visited Jack when he was laid up in the infirmary, which to modern day parents, we think this is just crazy. And even at the time, there were parents, of course, who would visit a sick child in the infirmary, but he did not get visits from his mother. Joe, in some ways, the more devoted parent, would visit his son in some of these instances. But you're quite right. This is young Jack. He's athletic in his own way. He's got good hand-eye coordination. And he grows to be about six feet tall. So it's not as though he's a little runt or anything like this. And next to his brother, who is never, I don't know, that Joe Kennedy Jr. is sick a day in his life. And is so robust, so driven, knows he's the golden child, desperate to impress his parents and especially his father.

28:24That's Joe Jr. in a nutshell. But I think both of these boys are driven by this desire to show daddy that they're the best. And, you know, when I suddenly I get that impression from reading your work that when Jack Jr. is sick in bed, he still can't be doing nothing. So what he does is he reads and he is a voracious reader at a young age because he spends such a you know a huge amount of time on his back in bed on his back and of course in those days you didn't have other distractions you know uh it was it was reading really or nothing and he does become uh as you say a voracious reader by the way something that really continues through his life i think it's a it's a key to understanding who he is develops a particular interest in diplomatic

29:11history and in biographies of statesmen and becomes certainly the most bookish member of the family, both the parents and his siblings. And, you know, in the long run, obviously, he's going to pay off for him. And this dimension of him, this interest in history, which, as I said earlier, he gets really from Rose. Maybe it's because I'm a historian, but I have a soft spot for that part of Jack Kennedy's personality. And he sort of, you know, once he gets over his childhood sicknesses, he gets a little more robust and he goes to this exclusive school called Choate School in Connecticut. To those listening in England, it's basically your Eton stroke Harrow, isn't it? Yeah, maybe a slight notch below.

30:05So I don't know, you would know the English sort of pecking order more than I would, but it would be in the kind of second tier, if you will, in terms of reputations of these prep schools. I mean, they're certainly modelled on the English public school, even if it's second tier, because, you know, we have the Bullingdon Club here in this country, but you had the Muckers Club there in America. And what was a mucker and how was, you know, Jack Kennedy a mucker? Well, it's a group that he really was responsible for really bringing to life. It was a group of maybe a dozen boys that showed who were up to mischief. And he was really the de facto leader you see here a future you know a future political leader uh in a sense um and they would get into trouble and the headmaster

30:54would bring them into the office and ultimately they were even uh expelled uh and then joe kennedy had to come into the into the picture and headmaster that they should be allowed to continue with their studies. But it was a group that it was pretty good natured. That wasn't anything too dramatic, but caused, at least as far as he was concerned, the headmaster, Unnecessary trouble, shall we say. Yeah. I mean, he accused them of sort of, you know, being mired in muck with their behavior. So they bought themselves a lovely monogrammed shovel. You know, that's that kind of sort of privilege and cheek that go hand in hand, right? And let me just make a nice little anecdote, because this says something about the Netflix production. So I was on the set at Shepperton Studios,

31:46just outside London, as you know. And I got to talking with the person who was really responsible for the sets and for everything involved with making the production look real. And he presented me with a tiny little shovel in gold. And he said, we wanted you to have this, Frederick, because you'll know exactly what this means. And of course, it was a little tiny mucker's shovel. Fantastic. Fantastic. Very nice. Very nice. So I mean, he sort of, he would have been booted up, but then the family relocates to London, which is probably very good timing for the future president and joe his dad is the american ambassador and basically this gives the history oriented jack a ringside seat for the collapse of the european order and he does he does

32:39actually drive through or get driven through nazi germany Tell us a little bit about what he sees and what he perceives. He's the sort of Forrest Gump, or if you know the Woody Allen movie, he's a zealot. He's a zealot type figure to an amazing degree. And this was great fun for me to write about. It's sort of in the heart of or in the middle of the second of the first volume. Because as you say, he travels all over Europe. Really, beginning in 1937, before his father is ambassador, he and his best friend Len Billings travel around the continent when tensions are already building. But then in 1938, and especially in 1939, Jack Kennedy has an extraordinary travel abroad or study abroad experience

33:23because through his father's connections, he's able to visit a number of countries, ultimately, as you say, Nazi Germany in late August of 1939. Amazing. See it up close. He intersects there with Joe Jr., who's doing his own travels. And in fact, Jack is asked by the charge d'affaires in the U.S. embassy in Berlin to take a message back to London to his father, and I think by extension to Neville Chamberlain. And the message says, war is coming within a week. Jack does what he's told, brings the message back, and sure enough, war comes within a week. So as you say, what an experience for a student of history and international affairs to have this experience. He also spends a little time working in the embassy.

34:14He works a little bit at the U.S. Embassy in Paris. And this puts him in a position to return to Harvard for his final year and to write a senior thesis, in effect, on what he has seen specifically. First hand. Yes, first hand. But it's really about why the British seem ill prepared for war, given that they've been through a war in recent memory, World War I, and have so many warning signs about what is to come. That's really the heart of the senior thesis. This is so mind-blowing. Because if he is the little post boy to take the message home to both his father and to Chamberlain. Both his father and Chamberlain have already chosen the wrong side. Because let's not forget it's 1938 when Chamberlain comes with his rolled up piece of paper saying, you know, I have peace in our time. Do we have any indication whether the young Jack Kennedy, future President Kennedy,

35:09thinks they're wrong? Or does he just, you know, is he wrong-footed as well? I think initially, it's a great question. Initially, he too is, I think, wrong-footed or he's inclined to follow his father's position. His father is an arch appeaser. Even after Chamberlain's, even after Chamberlain in effect abandons appeasement, Joe Kennedy clings to that policy. You need to make a deal with Hitler. And more importantly for the United States, we need to keep out of this war. And by this point, by the time we get into the middle part of 39, I think Jack Kennedy has, in effect, begun to split from his father. This is a very fascinating development. Because, as you pointed out earlier, he and his brother are so devoted to their father, so disinclined to challenge their father. But I think that Jack Kennedy, partly through his

36:05professors at Harvard, partly through his own experiences in Europe, comes to see that his father's position is untenable. In other words, isolationism won't work for the United States. Appeasement of Hitler won't work. While Joe Kennedy Jr. sticks very close to his father's position. This is a really interesting development between the two brothers. Yeah, no, absolutely. And Joe, the chosen older brother, will always remain loyal. Jack, the one who read books and maybe understands a bit more about what's going on in the world, breaks free of him. No matter where they stand on this or how nuanced their position, war does come. And Pearl Harbor happens. And both brothers, whatever they might have thought about their father's position on appeasement both go

36:50to war and they i mean should jack even have been allowed into you know any kind of military combat because he he had a he had a ruined back he had an undiagnosed adrenal disease um you know he'd been had that sickly childhood and people would later find out all the things that hailed him. But should he have been ever allowed near combat or did he mask all of those weaknesses so well that nobody would have noticed anyway? I mean, on some level, he should not have been allowed anywhere near a torpedo boat, as they were called, in the South Pacific, because of these health elements, as you say. On the other hand, he was both able to mask them, and I think they were maybe less debilitating than some historians, some biographers have suggested. This is a theme

37:41really throughout my volumes that Jack Kennedy's health problems in some ways have been exaggerated in that I don't think they ultimately kept him from doing the things he was determined to do. In this case, my country has called me. I'm determined to serve. I don't want to be seated at a desk in Washington. I want to be in the heart of the action. And here I have to give Joe Kennedy Sr., the father, a certain amount of credit because it's partly through Joe Sr.'s intervention because he knows people in the American government and in the Navy in senior positions. He helps get Jack the, I don't know, the runaround to allow him to serve and to go off and, of course, then have his battle experience in the Solomons.

38:32So in the Solomons, as you say, and it's one of the, if I can put it this way, one of the sexiest assignments, the PT boat. I mean, you should explain to everyone the glamour of the PT boat because so many people wanted to be on the PT boat. Well, the PT boat, yes, people wanted to be on the PT boat. Well, the PT boat, yes, exactly right. Sexy, glamorous. They ride high in the water. They're fast. They're nimble. And so you can imagine why young men in Jack's position. And Jack was very comfortable on the water. He was an expert sailor. He had spent time since he was a little kid off Hyannisport learning how to navigate boats and how to sail. So it doesn't surprise me that he thought, ah, yes, rather than be on some battleship or destroyer, I want to command one of these boats, which has a crew of maybe 12.

39:19You can be in a more dramatic role. What he didn't realize was that they were also deeply vulnerable to Japanese attack. And of course, so many PT boats were lost as a result of this vulnerability. I don't know that in the end they served a hugely important military role, but this is what he wanted. This is the assignment he craved. And he proved in the PT training to be really good at manning these boats. And so he got a justified position as commander of the now famous boat, PT 109. Well, just before we get to that, I mean, i mean because of the you know by dint of the fact he was born in the you know 19 you know through the 1930s and 40s we've got photographs so you've got these impossibly glamorous pictures of jack kennedy on the on his pt boat looking to all

40:19intents and purposes as if he's just a playboy driving a speedboat. But he's in a battle arena. It's crazy. So, right, PT-109. So we take us to the night of the 2nd of August, 1943. We are in the Blackett Strait. Where is the Blackett Strait? It's right in the Solomons. It's a very important passageway, hence the patrolling of several PT boats night after night because they're looking for Japanese destroyers to perhaps intercept, or at least be in a position to know what the Japanese are up to. And so they're sent out on really nightly patrols. And Lieutenant Kennedy, of course, his boat is one of them on this particular night. And so it's a moonless night, we should say as well. So it's dark, it's pitch black.

41:06I mean, the drama is unbearable. And suddenly this Japanese destroyer, Amagiri, strikes and it cuts this boat in half. Now, I mean, first of all, that just sounds as though it's a death knell for everybody. It isn't for everybody. Tell us who goes through what. Well, and we could say here, I think, Anita, that Jack Kennedy deserves his share of blame. Nobody would say that he's heroic for this part of the story. In other words, allowing his boat to be rammed in this way. There are certain extenuating reasons for why this happened. I don't think he was incompetent in allowing this to happen. But the point is that it does. And as you say, really, everybody should have been killed on board. But miraculously, all but two of the crew members survive.

42:01Which is a miracle because half of this ship is on fire. Yes. The men, you know, two of the men are killed instantly and the rest are in this pitch black water on a moonless night in the Pacific, hundreds of miles behind enemy lines. Yeah, and they have to decide what to do now. Shark infested waters, there's sharks all around them. And of course the Japanese could appear at any moment. And Jack Kennedy, as the commander, makes the decision, we're going to swim for that island that we can see over in the distance. And what ensues is a three or four hour swim in which he has to tow one of his boatmates. Uh, one of his subordinates basically has to tow him, uh, um, with, uh, a belt, uh, that he bites into, if I can put it this way,

42:46and he tows this fellow, and they somehow make it to the island. And it's just a remarkable sequence of events, and it takes a full week, an intricate set of developments during that week before they are actually finally rescued and a week with close calls i might ask my dad but um but they make it and i'll just say anita that i do think and i'm not the first to say this those actions by lieutenant kennedy after the ramming we can be critical of him leading up to the ramming. But I think heroic is not too strong a word, even though we throw it around too much these days, for what he did in that week after. Oh my God, I think completely an understatement. I mean, you know, he goes out, he brings one back, then he goes and he brings another one. What I love um these men is that you know he after taking in his badly burned

43:47comrade uh who as you say was gripping onto a belt with his teeth he goes back for a another friend called bucky harris and finally when he pulls him ashore harris turns around and says to him for a man from boston you're certainly putting up a great exhibition out here i mean it's just understatement after understatement. But this is the mythology of a president, a future president. I mean, you know, not many can claim. I don't know, I mean, Washington, Eisenhower, how many former US presidents can claim that kind of battle mythology? Well, very few of them can. And here we need to come back to Joe Kennedy, Joe Sr., because Joe says, first to himself and then to Jack this story of PT 109 is one that we've got to make the electorate here in Massachusetts in the 11th

44:33district we've got to make them fully aware of this most of them are aware of it because this was front page news when it happened in the Boston Globe which is the local paper. But we've really got to make this widely known. And so he engineers an effort, if you will, to make sure that this is widely known. I think it becomes very important to Jack Kennedy's political career, no question about it. And that's substantially, I think, due to his father's intervention. Well, I mean, yes, I mean, it's sort of almost bonkers, isn't it? He comes back and he's already here. Everyone knows about what's happened and he's not even back yet because his dad's been going into overdrive with the propaganda. What's just so interesting about

45:14this is that his older brother has to see the kind of publicity that his slacker brother, who never seems to amount to anything, has received for this. And to go back a little bit, the senior thesis that we talked about earlier is published as a book. It's unbearable to be his brother. It becomes a minor bestseller. Joe Jr.'s senior thesis wasn't published. So little by little, I think you see how the younger brother begins to overshadow the older brother, how difficult this is, understandably enough, for Joe Jr. And now with PT-109, where he thinks, why did my brother allow his boat to be rammed? Why is no one talking about that? Some hero he is. I just think this is a very hard time for Joe Jr.

46:02Which may explain, I suppose, what happens next to the oldest son, Joe Jr., because it's almost exactly a year later in August 1944. The prince, the man who should have been president, the one who'd been groomed since birth by his father to be president, decides to take a colossal risk. I mean, just talk us through what happens to Joe Jr. You know, Honeyfitts allegedly said on the day of Joe Jr.'s birth in 1915, who knows if this is apocryphal, but Honeyfitts allegedly said, this is the future president of the United States. So literally from birth, this has been promised for Joe Jr. In 1944, partly I suspect, and I suggest in the book, I don't have deep, you know, direct proof of this. But partly because of Jack's exploits uh and the publicity he received for his

47:09exploits Joe Junior basically says I've got to match what Jack has done or I've got to figure out a way to be on the front page myself uh win some medals for this and he volunteers what for what is in a sense a kind of suicide mission a kind of flying bomb uh from southern england um he and his co-pilot are going to fly over towards france at a certain moment they're going to bail and then this aircraft laden with uh munitions. 23,562 pounds of explosives, Frederick. Yes, exactly. You're filling in beautifully. I, this flying bomb is going to then explode on a key target on, in coastal France, a German, obviously a German target. But before they can bail, it explodes midair and no trace of either pilot is found. That's how, in fact, the wreckage is not even really found. That's

48:16how intense this explosion is. The thing about the Kennedys is that they live a life of soap opera. I mean, it is that dramatic. So the last message that the prince leaves for his king father, that Joe Jr. leaves for his dad is, I'm about to go into my final act. If I don't come back, tell my dad, despite our differences, that I love him very much. Bloody hell, Frederick. I mean, just, you know, if you wrote that, people would go, oh, that's hard to believe. But he did. He did. And note, no mention of mom. Most young boys, not young boys, most young men would probably say, I mean, they're more attached often to their mother, or at least in a moment of crisis, they're crying out for their mother. But in this case, he says, tell dad that I love

49:09him. And of course, they don't have many differences. So that's an interesting assertion as well. He is so close to his father on the great issues of war and peace. Also, in terms of their position on domestic politics, they are, you know, two peas in a pod. How does the family react? How does Joe Sr. react? I think this is the most difficult time in Joe Kennedy's life, Joe Sr.'s life, and in the mother's life. I think this is the beginning of a harrowing few months for them, again, because of who this is. The prince, as you say. And I don't know that they have favorites per se, because they love their children. But to the extent that they do, I think for both of them, it's the firstborn. I mean, I guess the firstborn always has a special kind of place in a way.

50:05And I don't think they can quite bring themselves to believe this. I think Joe Sr. blames himself in part because of, you know, his positions that he's taken, that somehow the reputation or the suggestion was allowed to be made that the Kennedys were yellow, meaning cowardly. Because of the position they took on Hitler. Well, and also because there was a suggestion, which I think is false. But a suggestion arose that when the Battle of Britain began, Joe Kennedy, his ambassador, was cowardly and he retreated each night into the countryside outside London because he didn't want to be subjected to the bombs. I don't think it's true, but I do think that Joe Jr. felt for a long time, and maybe Jack

50:51did too, the reason we have to serve in this war is to show the world that this is not true about our father and it's not true about the family. And hence this uh volunteer this mission that joe joe jr went on i mean it's it's all so painful um i just wonder if joe had not died in that way and been taken from the family in that way would there be have been a president kennedy at all because jack showed no inclination to wanting power and influence or pleasing his dad the way that joe jr wanted to but with the prince gone i mean it's sort of a we have the model of henry the eighth and the death of his brother arthur where he suddenly has to be king you know and then does it and boy does he i

51:41mean is it the same thing that happens here i mean mean, I think it's something similar. You put it in an interesting way when you said, would there have been a President Kennedy? I don't know. If you had put it slightly differently, if you had said, you know, if Joe Jr. doesn't die, would Jack have entered politics? I would have been pretty confident in saying yes. And I'm not, I think there are biographers and historians who disagree with me on this. In other words, they believe that if Joe Jr. survives, Jack would have gone into journalism or he would have been a college professor or he would have done something else. I think he was destined for politics. Because in already in 1942, we haven't talked about his flaming romance with

52:23Inge Arvad, a Danish beauty, but he, in their pillow talk, and she was, by the way, a suspected Nazi spy, to just add to the drama of this whole story. But in their pillow talk, she and Jack mused about him entering politics. And she even said something like, Jack, I think you're destined to go all the way, meaning become president. So he was interested in politics long before his brother died. And in fact, at Harvard, he was the one who was more inclined to study government and to really immerse himself in political affairs. We've already talked about his reading interest and so on. So I do think he would have perhaps, I think he would have maybe at some point entered politics himself, but there's no question that Joe Jr.'s death has a profound effect on his

53:13early career and what his father believes because his father now says, Jack, you're going to take over this mantle. You're the one. And we're going to make every effort to make you enter politics. And Jack, as I say, for his own reasons, but also his father's encouragement does so. Well, you've set us up brilliantly because next time we are going to look at the political rise and rise of Jack Kennedy as he runs for Congress, wins, starts this very long and successful climb. And in our next episode, he becomes the most eligible bachelor in America with a private life that is, shall we say, as colourful and complicated as his father's. So do be with us for that. And Frederick is going to be with us

54:02again for that. Frederick, thank you so very much. Oh, it's my pleasure. Till the next time we meet then, it's goodbye. Your business is growing and so is your to-do list. But updating the CRM will not be on it. Because with HubSpot, updates happen automatically. So you can build demand and move deals without all the admin. Learn more at HubSpot.com. Now for a quick message from Anthropic, the team behind Claude, the AI built for businesses. Imagination doesn't need permission, just room to play. Claude is an AI that works alongside you to give your ideas the space they need to grow. And then it helps you make them real and ready to ship. Discover more with Claude at claude.ai. Want to know you're on the best path to the right car?

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